The GuildWars 2 Thread.

Guild Wars 2 is the sequel to the hugely popular MMORPG Guild Wars series. It's currently under development by ArenaNet, a subsidiary of NCSoft, publisher of other successful MMORPGs such as Aion and City of Heroes (fun fact: ArenaNet was founded by ex-Blizzard Inc. employees that had done extensive work on the Diablo series). Many new features have been implemented into Guild Wars 2, such as a completely new game engine, an entirely persistent world with dynamic events, a brand new take on traditional MMO quests and missions, new modes of PvP combat, and a unique skill system unlike any RPG before it with heavy emphasis on weapon selection and character race. The most significant of these features is the "Dynamic Events" system, which essentially reinvents the MMO quest and mission structure. Read more about it here, or watch ArenaNet's MMO Manifesto video below (I recommend it) to get an idea of how Guild Wars 2 could potentially redefine the MMORPG and set the new high quality standard in co-op online gaming.

The game shifts the timeline forward from Guild Wars: Eye of the North about 250 years into its aftermath. For generations, war and chaos raged across the land of Tyria. Five great races competed and warred against each other, struggling to tip the balance of power in their favor.

Then the dragons woke.

The all-powerful beasts stirred from their millennial sleep under earth and sea. With their magical breath the dragons spread destruction and created legions of twisted slaves. A deathless dragon named Zhaitan raised the sunken nation of Orr, triggering earthquakes and tidal waves that destroyed entire cities across the Sea of Sorrows.

Zhaitan's undead armies surged from the sea, hungry for the destruction of the five races of Tyria: the charr, a ferocious race of feline warriors; the asura, magical inventors of small size and great intellect; the norn, towering shapeshifters from the frigid northern lands; the sylvari, a mysterious young race of visionary plant folk; and the humans, an embattled but resilient people.

Now heroes from the five races must set aside ancient rivalries and stand together against their common enemies.

Magic, technology, and cold steel will determine the ultimate fate of the world.

Long ago, a weary soldier planted a strange seed in the depths of the Maguuma Jungle. For centuries, the Pale Tree grew, branches arching over the forest, until at last--twenty five years ago--it bloomed, and the Firstborn stepped into the world. They were followed by their brethren, season after season of sylvari, wide-eyed with wonder and searching for purpose in this strange land. Shaped first by the Dream that nurtured them before they awakened, the sylvari now travel Tyria seeking adventure and their place in the world.

The birth of sylvari was a response to the threat of the dragons, and as such, sylvari believe it is their destiny to hunt the dragons. The sacred Ventari Tablet, inscribed with the ethical views of its creator, remains at the base of the Pale Tree. Sylvari have an innate bond with plants, and each other, which they call the Dream of Dreams. However, concealed within the Dream of Dreams are nightmares, something which the sylvari do not yet understand. These nightmares have manifested themselves in the form of the Nightmare Court, a sylvari faction who have turned against their own kind. Sylvari craft their armor and weapons from organic material, such as roots and leaves.
They hail from the frozen north--the norn, a race of heroes. These massive, shape-shifting warriors prize individual valor and victory above all. They trust only the power of steel. The norn do not beg or grovel for the favor of the Gods, no. Instead, they revere the spirits of animals and draw strength from them. The norn can assume the form of their sacred totem beasts--bear, snow leopard, raven, and wolf--and call upon their power whenever they do battle, which is often…

Driven south by the dragon Jormag, their culture in tatters, the norn now hunt among the abandoned dwarven forts of the Shiverpeaks and as far afield as Kryta. New norn homesteads and totem lodges are spread across the high peaks and in snowy valleys of the Shiverpeaks. The largest of the norn settlements is Hoelbrak, their central meeting place. Here they seek to preserve what is to be norn, which means heroic deeds, brawling, drinking and more drinking. They do not consider themselves vanquished by Jormag, however. They think of this as a temporary retreat.
The thundering sound of their advancing war machines makes the lesser races tremble with fear. They are the charr, and conquest is their birthright. The charr race was forged in the merciless crucible of war. It is all they know; war defines them and their quest for dominion drives them onwards, always onwards. The weakling and the fool find no place among the charr.

Charr society consists of four High Legions: three allied and one outcast. Each legion is then separated into different warbands. Although the charr live in relative peace with one another and their neighbors to the west, the norn, this does not mean that they do not have to defend their territories. Human resistance forces from the Blazeridge Mountains still strike out from their sole remaining fortress, and the ghosts of Ascalon City still zealously guard their home as if they might still have a chance against the might of the charr legions. In addition, the charr must contend with the twisted servants of Kralkatorrik, who were corrupted by the southward flight of the dragon.

They may be short in stature, but this subterranean race of magical inventors are intellectual giants. These incredibly intelligent beings use their knowledge and skill with magic and crafting to assert their natural dominance. In the world of the asura, it is not the strong who survive, but the clever. Other races believe they should rule by virtue of their power and strength, but they delude themselves. All will serve the asura - in due time...

The asura were previously a subterranean race and living below Tyria they regularly interacted with other underground races, dwarves and dredge. The appearance of the destroyers, the minions of Primordus, deep underground forced the asura to the surface. The majority found a home among magical ruins found on the Tarnished Coast, where they quickly learned how to harness these the magical energies to further their research. Over the years the asura have increased their network of waypoint gates across Tyria, but they jealously guard the technology and enforce gate use for peaceful activities only.
The resiliency of the noble human race has been tested many times. They have paid a dear cost for their security and liberty, yet their spirit remains unshaken. From the invasion of Ascalon by the savage charr, to the cataclysmic rise of the lost kingdom of Orr from the depths of the sea, mankind has been battered and overwhelmed. They have lost homelands; their prayers go to silent skies. Now, the remaining sons and daughters of man have one last homeland--the nation of Kryta, ruled by Queen Jennah.

The human capital, the fortress city Divinity's Reach, is the core of humanity's culture and its last, best hope. It is the only major human city left, and for this reason they will guard it to the death. Ruled by Queen Jennah, the Krytan government has had to adapt to accommodate refugees from all of the former human kingdoms. The only other known human settlement is Ebonhawke, where the remains of Ascalon stubbornly hold out against the charr hordes. The humans still revere their Gods, however they have been worryingly absent in human affairs at a time when humanity needs them more than ever. Perhaps they have taken a step back to allow the humans to develop on their own, or maybe they, like the race that worships them, are in decline.

The Elementalist channels natural forces of destruction, making fire, air, earth, and water do her bidding. What the Elementalist lacks in physical toughness, she makes up for in her ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack, dropping foes from a distance before they can become a threat. Yet, despite her incredible offensive potential, versatility is what makes the Elementalist truly formidable.

Elementalist Exclusive Skills & Mechanics

Glyphs
These arcane spells enhance or modify the natural power of the elementalist. She uses the Glyph of Elemental Power to increase the damage, range, and duration of her spells.Conjure Spells
The elementalist uses Conjure spells to summon useful items and potent weapons that she or other party members can use. For instance, she uses Conjure Flame to create a fiery rock to hurl at the enemy.Area Spells
Using Area spells, the elementalist creates hazards and mayhem all over the field of battle. The elementalist fires lava arrows in a cone-shaped blast or creates walls of fire that scorch any enemies passing through.Attunements
The elementalist's unique profession ability is to attune to the elements using special always available attunement skills. As the elementalist casts an attunement the first five skills on their skill bar change to reflect the new element; fire, air, earth or water.

Elementalist Traits
The elementalist has one general trait line: Arcanum. They have lines for each attunement: Earth Mastery, Air Mastery, Water Mastery, and Fire Mastery. They also have lines for each of the weapons they can wield. An elementalist might find traits through the study of ancient tomes or particularly powerful elemental locations.

Elementalist Equipment
The elementalist is a scholar profession and will thus use light armor.

The elementalist has access to only one weapon set during combat, but can change weapons outside combat. There are five possible weapon sets for elementalists.

The warrior is a master of weapons who relies on speed, strength, toughness, and heavy armor to survive in battle. A warrior can shrug off blow after blow to stay in the fight, all the while building up adrenaline to fuel his offense.

Warrior Exclusive Skills & Mechanics

Stances
These are toggle skills that let you turn on an enhancement at the cost of energy regeneration. For example, a warrior could hit Berserker's Stance which drains his energy, but gives him adrenaline regeneration. You can easily toggle off Berserker's Stance and send the skill into recharge.

Banners
The warrior calls down banners to buff his allies with attack power. A banner can be picked up and carried around to move the buff, or it can be planted in an area to convey the buff, allowing the warrior to continue fighting. One example is Banner of Courage, which increases the melee damage of allies within its range.

Shouts
Shouts are skills that affect a large area and give bonuses to allies or debuff enemies. A warrior could use the shout On My Mark to lower an enemy's armor and call a target out to allied party members.

Warrior Traits
A warrior gains traits through training physically, by defeating enemies, and by eating and drinking. A warrior has two general trait lines to choose from: power and tactics. They also have trait lines for each of the weapons they can wield.

There are nineteen different combinations of weapons that a warrior can wield. A warrior has two active weapon sets and can easily switch between them, but doing so in combat induces a cooldown to prevent continuous switching between weapons. This cooldown can be decreased by equipping the Weapon Mastery trait once gained.

The ranger is a jack-of-all-trades and a master of them all as well, relying on his keen eye, steady hand, or the power of nature itself. A master of ranged combat, the ranger is capable of striking unwitting foes from a distance with his bow. With a stable of pets at his command, a ranger can adapt to his opponents' strengths and weaknesses.

Ranger Skills & Mechanics

 Preparations
A preparation is a utility skill type which applies a buff to the Ranger or the Ranger's currently wielded weapon.

 Traps
Traps are utility skills that can be placed at a ranger's current location. When an enemy enters a trap, it is triggered. For example, Spike Trap will cripple and bleed enemies that pass through it. A trap can remain active as long as the ranger chooses to remain close to it. A ranger can only have one of each trap type out at any given time.

 Spirits
A spirit skill summons a nature spirit that influences the area around it. For example, Sun Spirit applies additional fire damage to allied attacks inside its influence. A spirit stays out for a short period of time and goes away if the ranger wanders too far away from it. Spirits can be attacked by enemies and removed from the battle. A ranger can only have one of each type of spirit out at any given time.

 Pets
A ranger has three active pet slots. Outside of combat, or through the use of utility skills, the ranger can swap their active pet. There are 12 different types of pets, including some terrestrial (spiders), some amphibious (lizards), and some aquatic (sharks). Within each type there are subtypes that can influence pets' abilities. For example, a polar bear might have an Icy Roar, while a brown bear might have a Fearsome Roar. A ranger's pet gets its level from its master, which determines their basic attack, armor, and health.

 Pet Evolution
Pets have customization options. The first of these has to do with a pet's evolution level. Pets evolve up to 20 evolution levels. Each pet type receives automatic bonuses at different evolution levels. For bears, these bonuses might be increased health or increased damage. Pets gain evolution points when the player gains XP while the pet is active. At certain evolution levels, pets will unlock ability slots (up to 4 total). Ability slots can be filled from a list of active pet abilities based on pet type.Ranger Traits
A ranger has two general trait lines to choose from: Wilderness Survival and Beast Mastery. They also have trait lines for each of the weapons they can wield.

Ranger Equipment

 Armor
The ranger is an adventurer profession and they will use medium armor.

necromancer is a practitioner of the dark arts who summons the dead, wields the power of lost souls, and literally sucks the lifeblood of the enemy. A necromancer feeds on life force, which he can use to bring allies back from the brink or cheat death itself.

Necromancer Skills & Mechanics

• Wells
Wells are persistent spells that allow a necromancer to control the area around him. Created at the necromancer's location, wells affect targets within the skill's range. Well of Blood, for example, applies a regeneration boon to all allies within it. A necromancer can only have one well skill active at any time.

• Minions
The necromancer summons undead minions to attack foes and do his bidding. Every minion-summoning spell has an associated secondary spell that appears after the minion has been summoned. This secondary spell destroys the minion while providing a powerful effect to the necromancer. For example, necromancers have a healing skill called Summon Blood Fiend that creates a minion that heals its master while it attacks. After the minion has been summoned, the Summon Blood Fiend skill is replaced by the skill Taste of Death, which allows a necromancer to destroy the minion to gain a larger amount of health.

• Marks
Necromancers can also place marks--ground-targeted spells with a variety of potent effects. For instance, Mark of Blood damages enemies while placing a regeneration boon on nearby allies. Marks will trigger after a set period of time, but a necromancer can always trigger their marks on command by hitting the skill again.

• Fear
Necromancers use a condition not available to any other profession: fear. A removable condition, fear makes an enemy flee directly away from a necromancer for a short period of time. For example, a necromancer can use Doom to instill fear in a single target.

• Death Shroud
Necromancers gain life force when enemies and allies die near them, and can use that life force to go into the Death Shroud, which drains the life force slowly but gives access to other skills, or use it for certain skills which heal or buff their allies. Necromancers automatically go into Death Shroud when they would be downed.

Necromancer Traits
Necromancers have two general trait lines, Soul Reaping and Blood Rituals, as well as one for each weapon they can wield, and one for their separate dagger.

Necromancer Equipment

• Armor
The necromancer is a scholar profession and thus uses light armor.

• The necromancer has a total of 10 possible weapon sets. They also can have 2 active weapon sets and can easily switch between them.

The guardian is a devoted fighter who calls upon powerful virtues to smite enemies and protect allies. As dangerous with a staff as he is with a mighty two-handed hammer, a true guardian is a master tactician who knows when to sacrifice his own defenses to empower his allies to achieve victory.

Guardian Skills & Mechanics

• Spirit Weapons
The guardian can summon spirit weapons to fight at his side for a limited time. Spirit weapons cannot be attacked by enemies and can be commanded to inflict a powerful attack before disappearing. For example, Hammer of Wisdom can be summoned to fight alongside a guardian, then commanded to knock down an enemy and vanish.

• Symbols
The guardian places symbols on the ground, where they inflict damage to enemies or deliver a benefit to allies. Symbols persist for a few seconds and then go away. For instance, Symbol of Faith is a hammer attack that leaves a transient symbol on the ground, giving allies the Vigor boon.

• Wards
A ward is a marked area on the ground that stops enemies from passing through while allowing allies to move freely. For example, a staff-wielding guardian can create a Line of Warding in front of him that keeps enemies from reaching the allies behind him.

• Aegis
Guardians are adept in the use of Aegis, a removable boon that blocks the next attack. Guardians have access to this boon through the virtue of Courage.

• Virtues
Guardians have three special virtue abilities--Justice, Courage, and Resolve--that grant them passive benefits in battle. They can choose to activate a virtue, extending a powerful version of these benefits to their allies, but disabling their own passive ability until the activated virtue has finished recharging. The guardian virtues are:

• There are 12 combinations of weapon sets available for this profession. It is unknown how many weapon sets that this profession can actively switch between at this time.

A master of stealth and surprise, the thief is deadly in single combat—particularly when catching enemies off guard. Thieves compensate for their relatively low armor and health by being quick and evasive. They can move through the shadows, vanish into thin air, or steal items from their opponents and use them as weapons. Enemies should watch their backs, or the thief will watch it for them.

Thief Skills & Mechanics

•Stealth
Stealth has a limited duration and can be broken in various ways. Most stealth is lost when a player attacks through it. Some stealth breaks when the player moves. While in stealth, a player can still take damage and will temporarily appear in the world when they do.

•Shadow Stepping
Shadow Stepping is a teleport mechanic used by the thief profession to get in and out of battle. A thief may only shadow step where normal movement is possible and may not use it to teleport through a gate or other blocking area.

•Traps
Thieves use traps to ambush unsuspecting enemies and control areas. For example, Shadow Trap is a trap that puts the thief into Stealth and Shadow Steps them back to the trap's location.

•Initiative
Initiative is the thief's resource mechanic. A thief has ten points of Initiative that refill at a rate of one point per second both in and out of combat. Skill 1 on their bar is always free, but the other thief weapon skills all cost Initiative instead of having recharge. Thief Heal, Utility, and Elite skills do not cost Initiative and still have a recharge cost.

•Stealing
Above their skill bar, all thieves have a special skill called Steal that can be used on enemies. It does not actually steal a real item from an opponent, but rather generates an appropriate environmental weapon based on the target. Stealing does not break stealth, and cannot be used often. When a thief steals, it can open up a range of support and control options that are less prominent in his basic skills.

•Dual Skills
Dual Skills are special skills that thieves acquire in slot 3 of their weapon bar that are based on both weapons they are wielding. A dual skill is determined by both main hand and offhand weapons, and can vary depending on the order. For example, a thief wielding a pistol main hand with dagger offhand (Shadow Strike) will have a different dual skill than a thief wielding a dagger main hand and pistol offhand (Shadow Shot). The shortbow is the one exception to this rule; it does not have a dual skill.

•Thief Traits
Thieves have general trait lines called Shadow Arts and Agility. They also have trait lines for each of the weapons they can wield.

Thief Equipment

•Armor
The thief is an adventurer profession and thus wears medium armor.

Masters of mechanical mayhem, engineers tinker with explosives, gadgets, elixirs, and all manner of deployable devices. They can take control of an area by placing turrets, support their allies with alchemic weaponry, or lay waste to foes with a wide array of mines, bombs, and grenades.

Engineer Skills & Mechanics

• Weapon Kits
These are a type of utility skill that replaces the currently equipped weapon (and their skills) with a new weapon. There are two weapon kits available; the Flamethrower and the Elixir Gun.

• Backpack Kits
These are a type of utility skill that replaces the currently equipped weapon (and their skills) with more specialized skills. There are five different backpack kits in total: Tool Kit, Grenade Kit, Bomb Kit, Mine Kit, Med Kit

• Turrets
An engineer can deploy turrets: immobile allied devices that help defend and control an area. When a turret is deployed, the skill in that slot is replaced with its overcharged version. For example, an engineer can deploy a Thumper Turret to cause AOE damage, and then activate the overcharge version of that skill for a big thump attack that knocks down nearby enemies. An engineer can interact with deployed turrets, packing them up and moving them around. This removes the turret—and the option to overcharge it—triggering a short recharge before that turret can be deployed again. Only one of each type of turret can exist at a time.

• Tool Belt
An engineer tool belt is a set of special skills above the weapon skill bar. It enhances the effectiveness and functionality of the engineer's utility and heal skills. The tool belt can add a self-destruct skill to turrets or a detonation option to all mines. When paired with the grenade kit, the tool belt allows a grenade barrage; with the med kit, it adds a self-healing skill.

Engineer Traits
An engineer has four general trait lines to choose from: Inventions, Explosives, Gadgets and Turrets. They also have trait lines for each of the weapons they can wield.

Engineer Equipment

•Armor
The engineer is an adventurer profession and thus wears medium armor.

•There are three possible weapon sets for the engineer, and has access to the harpoon gun while underwater. Because the engineer is able to switch skills using backpack and weapon kits, they are restricted to one weapon set in combat

Mesmers are magical duelists who rely on deception and confusion to keep their opponents in check. Indecision is their greatest ally. Using powerful illusions to distract, they make sure they never go toe to toe with an enemy; they use their powers and tactics to set up an unfair fight. Just when you think you've figured out what the mesmer is doing, illusions begin to shatter, clones start to fade away, and you realize you've been swinging at empty air all along. It's hard to keep your eye on the real mesmer.

Mesmer Skills & Mechanics

• Illusions
Physical representations of the caster. Most require a target, and are dispelled by being attacked. Up to three illusions can be maintained. There are two types of illusions: Clones — have the caster's appearance and name. Clones are attributed with low health, low damage and their own behavior.
Phantasms — have the caster's appearance with a purple glow, but don't have the caster's name. They have their own weapons that range in different appearances and behaviors. Phantasms are attributed with higher health and higher damage than clones.

• Mantras
Consist of two skills, similar to sequence skills. The first skill, having a long cast time (around 3s), is replaced by the second skill which has no cast time and can be cast during channeled spells. Multiple mantras can be prepared.

• Confused Condition
The mesmer introduces a new condition to our set called confusion. An enemy with confusion on them takes damage each time they activate a skill. This condition stacks in intensity, so the more confusion an enemy has, the greater the damage.

• Shattering
The mesmer has special abilities that can shatter illusions. Shattering will destroy all illusions and create a secondary effect. There are four different shatter skills:

Mind Wrack—Destroys your illusions and does damage to opponents near them.Cry of Frustration—Destroys your illusions and gives the confused condition to nearby foes.Diversion—Destroys your illusions and stuns nearby foes.Reflection—Destroys your illusions and places a barrier around the mesmer, which reflects enemy projectiles.

Mesmer Equipment

• Armor
The mesmer is a spellcasting scholar profession that uses light armor.

• Dynamic Content – Arena Net's Colin Johanson answers your Dynamic Event questions
There are no Quest givers in Guild Wars 2. NPC's will simply point you in the direction of unfolding events instead of giving you very specific instructions through walls of text. Even then, it's entirely unnecessary to interact to these NPC's as events are automatically pinged when you are within a certain distance of them. Although there will be limitations, the foremost requirement to participating in an event is simple to be in the right place at the right time.

Events are intended to prevent spawn camping and kill stealing of major objectives prevalent in other MMORPG by allowing any interested players to cooperate towards an objective without needing to form a party and each who "contributed significantly to the combat" will be rewarded for their participation and receive 100% of any experience gained. In order to prevent griefing, ArenaNet has developed an array of methods to stop potential griefers from ruining the fun for players who actively participate in an event: Events never encourage player conflict, and never have fail conditions that can be triggered by players. The conditions that may seem to fail an event actually just trigger another series of events. Higher-leveled players will be de-buffed in areas that are intended for lower leveled players.

Dynamic Events happen in real time with or without your participation while affecting the game world. An Event with Bandits ransacking a village, unless stopped, will ultimately end up with them establishing a new base of operations there, causing an Event in which the player must take back the village from the Bandits. Continuing this process, if the Bandits are left unabated, they will send out new raiding parties from the village that will cause new Events, so on and so forth. However these are not simply chains following a lateral sequence either, but can splinter off into multiple, and differing Events depending on yet unknown factors. Speculation assumes that splintering events can be triggered depending on how quick an event is completed, special items used, protecting a specific NPC, etc, but really, the potential and possibilities are to numerous to list.

Certain events will only occur when specific conditions are met, like a snow storm rolls into the map, or night falls over the graveyard. Although the cyclical nature of the system means that consequences are ultimately temporary, event results can persist for days, weeks, or even months. A player cannot know exactly what state the world is in and what one might see wandering around, even if they have quested in same zone multiple times. This means that experiencing every possible Event with all professions can never really happen. The world continually changes making it so you can never truly ‘accomplish everything’. It's almost like rewarding you for exploring the map, because according to ArenaNet, there are going to be 1500-1600 events going on in the persistent, "living" world for players to engage in.

• Active Combat – Arena Net's Jon Peters talks combat
Guild Wars 2 combat is visceral, weighty, and visual. ArenaNet has taken great lengths to steer your eyes away from the wing dings of the user interface and into the action. Movement, timing, and synergy between players will replace the staples of MMO combat such as skill rotations. Damage in the game is avoidable, everything from melee to magic, by players, and enemies alike. This makes gameplay much more akin to an action adventure then a role playing game. ArenaNet wants you to be able to identify the skills being used at a glance and also have a good idea of what that skill is doing. Even a simple skill like fireball explodes in such a way that you can clearly see the area that they will affect. Beyond your typical fireballs and lightning bolts, you'll see skills that create giant crushing stone hands, turn their users into massive tornadoes, and summon flocks of vicious birds of prey.

So much emphasis is placed on dynamic movment in GW2 that there is additional mechanic to add more depth to it, the Energy/Stamina bar, which regenerates over time and is primarily used for Dodging. A player can dodge in any direction by rapidly tapping the corresponding movement key, or by pressing a movement key and the dodge key simultaneously. If you are not moving, you will dodge backwards. There are also skills that when "held down" will actively block incoming projectiles from their intended target. So this will allow you to "take a hit" for other players if the situation arises. Dodging now also evades attacks, making it a more effective and understandable way to avoid big creature attacks or to get out of AoE spells.

• Underwater Combat – Arena Net's Jonathan Sharp talks underwater combat
Guild Wars 2 has a huge amount of it's content under water, entire cities and civilizations. You may potentially be underwater for extended periods of time, fortunately there is no breath bar, each player is automatically provided a breathing apparatus for use underwater, without limit. Under water combat should not simply be seen as a secondary experience compared to the land zones, it will be a slightly different but equally grand experience.

In order for the player to feel that underwater combat is fun and rewarding instead of a hindrance the players wield a harpoon gun, spear, or trident, resulting in an entirely different set of skills and combat styles. These skills take into account the Z-Axis as well as the usual X & Y. Spells and abilities now have wider arcs or more area of effects to account for the additional dimensions of movement.In addition to a wide variety of dynamic events, most dungeons have underwater content, and your personal story will also occasionally take you under the sea.

• The Holy Trinity – Arena Net's Jon Peters answers Healing and Death Questions
There are no defined class roles of Tank, Healer, or Striker, therefore no Holy Trinity. Combat is built around concepts of mobility, tactics, and control, every player will have the responsibility of doing a little bit of everything. While it's true that some profession have the potential to take harder hits, deal more damage, or buff to a greater degree, relying on a single player or class to do these things to the extent you feel you don't have to will almost certainly be suicide. You are going to be keeping yourself alive by paying attention, you’re going to be tanking, you’re going to be doing damage, you’re going to be healing, you’re going to be buffing, you’re going to be debuffing, you’re doing to be resurrecting allies. Situational awareness is everything.

A lot of work went into this from animation systems to animations themselves allowing skills while moving. It takes a lot of pressure off of the skill system and puts in back into movement, tactical play, and ground control. Couple that with double tap dodge rolling the combat system that is more like a first person shooter where finding real cover, flanking and other more realistic fighting techniques find a lot more use. This again de-emphasizes the importance of roles, professions act as play styles, not as roles. Each profession can support, control, and do damage. This creates more dynamic combat and more distinct professions because there are more play styles than roles.

• Level & Scaling – Progression and Leveling in Guild Wars 2
There are 80 levels total, but that's just a number. Anyone can increase the length of an experience bar and call it content. Guild Wars 2 is filled with an almost endless stream of things to do as the driving force behind your progression, not the size of your experience bar. Even at Level 1 you play for fun, not out of some dogged determination to slowly, slowly advance before the fun starts. And because the world is ever-changing and dynamic, two characters journeying through the game will have two different experiences, which means the game will remain fresh for all you out there who enjoy making a million characters.

Even for those who do still feel they have to ding that final ding before they are satisfied will be happy to hear there’s no exponential leveling curve in GW2, it’s linear and plateaus quickly. Each additional level takes no longer to reach than the level before it. Going even further into the concepts of the player not being defined by their level, player can be side kicked up higher or lower depending on the content they take part in. Friends, family, and guildmates will be able to play the same content together regardless of their personal progression.

How dynamic content scaling fits into this is say 4 players are engaged in an assault on the Flame Legion base. They're fighting off waves of 5-6 enemies at a time. Other players passing by see the burning smoke plumes from the assault, and decide to help. Cut to a dozen players joining the original 4 over an extended period and they are now fighting off waves of 20-25 enemies. The game will scale to hugely epic battles the more players decide to help out one another.

Everyone who actively participates in the event will receive a reward for the event. There are three levels of participation which scale the rewards given: bronze, silver and gold. Rewards include Experience, Gold and Karma. These rewards will be given even if the player(s) did not complete the win objective of an event. The players will just receive a prize less rewarding than it would be for the successful completion of an event. For example, if the players fail to stop centaurs from pillaging an outpost, they still will get the reward, so they do not feel they just wasted their time.

• Weapon Skills – Link Unavailable
The traditional 8-slot skill bar has been replaced with a new 10-slot bar. However, the mechanics of this change aren't simply limited to adding extra skills. Instead, it offers a new dynamic as to how your weapon choice and race selection plays into the abilities you have at your disposal. As such, the secondary classes mechanic from the first game has been omitted, as your selection of weapons and character race in Guild Wars 2 now determines your primary and secondary skill sets.

How this 10-slot skill bar works is simple; the first five slots are automatically filled with specific skills based on the weapon you choose to wield as well as the race of your character. A weapon’s skills are now learned by fighting with that weapon. Because weapon skills are tied to weapon use, there is no reason to visit a trainer and make choices about which ones to unlock. Instead, it makes more sense to learn how to use the weapon by, you know, actually using it. Once you learn all 5 skills for say a sword, all future swords you obtain will have the skills unlocked. So you just have to unlock all of the skills for each weapon type and you're done.

For example, a warrior wielding a mace and shield would get access to strong but slow damage skills like Obliterate, as well as powerful defensive skills such as Block and Shield Bash. A warrior wielding a greatsword would have access to a lot of movement-oriented skills like Rush, and area-of-effect skills like 100 Blades. In each case, the warrior's first five skills are determined by what he's holding in his hands. Weapon skills also take profession into account, so a warrior wielding a sword will have different skills than a different sword-wielding profession. To provide additional variety to the mix, most professions can have two different weapon sets equipped and can very quickly and easily swap between the sets. For example, a warrior might keep a longbow or rifle for engaging foes at a distance, and then switch to a hammer when that enemy gets close.

In PvE and world PvP skills are initially locked. The unlocking of the skill and any tiers improving the skill is restricted by the level of the player. For example, tier 9 of Point Blank Shot becomes available when the character reaches level 80. There are several different ways to unlock skills such as rewards for feats, purchasing them with karma, or looting them as a drop.

Pet skills and skills given by environmental weapons do not need to be unlocked and are always available to PvE and world PvP players. In structured PvP all skills are available for play without needing to be unlocked first.

• Slot Skills – Link Unavailable
The second set of five slots are all chosen by the player from a pool of skills determined by both profession and race. One of these slots is dedicated to healing skills that replenish the health of the character and his allies, while another slot is dedicated to elite skills that trigger visually spectacular and powerful effects. For example, a human Elementalist can choose to bring Aura of Restoration, which is a buff that heals him every time he uses a skill, or he can choose to bring Glyph of Healing, which is a more straightforward heal. A warrior might take the Frenzy skill, which will fill his adrenaline gauge instantly; the shout skill Fear Me! which inflicts the weakness condition on surrounding foes; or the Banner of Courage skill, which inspires his allies and increases their melee damage.

Skill acquisition for your healing/utility/elite skills will work differently than your weapon skills. You'll be undertaking something called skill challenges in which will grant you skill points. There will be 200 skill challenges in the game, though based on the info we have it doesn't seem likely that you'll have to obtain all of those in order to get all of your skills. With these skill points you can unlock any skill you wish as long as you have enough skill points. The cost of skills range anywhere from 1 skill point to 14 from what we can tell at the moment. So how do you obtain skill points? Well ArenaNet has described challenges as ranging anywhere from defeating difficult enemies, to solving riddles, to ingesting potent drinks.

A skill has several different tiers which change the attributes of the skill. The skill's effect can also be modified by the application of traits. If necessary, skills will have different effects in PvE and PvP versions or disallowed from PvP play to maintain balance. It is possible to auto-use skills by right-clicking on their icon.

• Skill Combinations – Guild Wars 2 Development Update by Jon Peters
You'll be able to create additional effects by stacking certain skills on top of each other at the same time with the assistance of other professions, people playing the same profession as you, and even by yourself.

The Initiator is the one that creates a Field by using an area of effect with at least one specific and lasting effect. A Field can be elemental effects—such as fire, ice, and lightning—to other effects like poison, light, dark, and smoke. This then allows the Finisher to use their skill known as a Trigger. The Trigger interacts with the characteristics of the Field, creating a more much more powerful and dynamic output. Finishers can only interact with one Initiator at a time, and do not stack. Finishers are actions of some kind, including firing projectiles, leaping, and blasting an area. Every Finisher can only be modified once, to avoid confusion and stacking.

Some examples of combos that can be created are: Use Ricochet through a Firewall to get a bouncing axe that has a chance to burn the targets it hits. Leaping Death Blossom through a Symbol of Faith will remove conditions from allies near your target. Stomp inside a Smoke Screen to cloak nearby allies. This is just a small sampling of what you can do with combos, and we leave it to you to find them all and combo to your heart’s delight. There's even a UI element for creating combos that helps you take advantage of them as well as let your allies know they can set one up. When two players create a combo there's a floating notification shown to both players and tells you which skills are involved. Skills also display their field type or finisher type in their description, to help players experiment. Almost every weapon has some sort of initiator or finisher which leaves two players ample opportunities to find and capitalize on combos, regardless of profession or other skill choices.

• Attributes & Traits – Arena Net's Eric and Ben Answer Your Questions about Warrior and Traits
An attribute is a generic modifier that improves a character's performance in combat. There are four attributes that are shared across all professions and there is no separation between magical and physical distribution - two attributes improve offense, two attributes improve defense. Power increases attack, Precision increases critical hit chance, Toughness increases defense, Vitality increases maximum health Each time a character gains a level, they are granted a number of attribute points that can be manually distributed. Attributes can also be reinvested. Attribute points can be acquired from a number of different sources: Leveling, armor upgrades and weapons, traits, or Consumables which increase attributes for a limited time.

A trait is an ability that can be equipped by a player to provide passive ongoing effects. Traits can be used to boost a character's attributes, reduce the effects of conditions, improve the effects of skills and more. Traits are determined by profession as well as the weapon held. There are around 100 traits per profession. Each trait has a type; major, as indicated by an octagram shaped icon, or minor, indicated by a hexagonal icon. A trait also has a trait line, a profession based grouping of traits, to which it belongs. Each profession has several trait lines. There are two types of trait line: general and weapon. General traits boost attributes or particular skill types, while weapon traits boost or give additional abilities to weapon skills. The effect of a trait cannot be changed by the player.

Traits are acquired in PvE by completing profession challenges scattered throughout the world. Each profession focuses on different activities to develop his or her traits. For example, warriors can train physically, bash stuff, eat and drink. Elementalists on the other hand can seek ancient knowledge locked in tomes or discover particularly powerful elemental locations. Discovering or earning traits does not necessarily require participation in events. Each trait can be individually collected. There are no traits which require another trait in order to gain access to it.

Once a trait has been found it can be equipped on the traits tab of the hero panel outside of combat. The available traits are presented in the profession's trait lines. Each of trait lines has a limited number of major and minor slots, which can be told apart by their shape. A trait of a matching type can be dragged from the trait listing for a line and dropped onto a slot to equip it. Several dozen traits can be selected for use at one time, however the final number will depend on the profession. Traits can be selected into every line available to the profession however the traits are only activated if appropriate. This means that general traits are always active if selected and only the selected weapon traits for the active weapon set are active. For example, axe traits can be equipped by a warrior but they will only be active if the warrior is wielding an axe. A trait may be disallowed from PvP play for balance reasons.

*Attributes & Traits go through more redesign's then anything else and this info might drastically change in the coming weeks*

• Downed & Defeated – A New Way of Looking at Healing and Death
Guild Wars 2 has changed the handling of character revival/resurrection in a significant way. Gone are one-time use resurrection signets and hard revival skills such as a flesh of my flesh or rebirth. Instead, every character can inherently revive a character. No skill required.

Another significant change is that your character doesn't automatically "die" per say. When your health reaches zero, you enter what is called a Downed State. In this state, your character is unable to move but has access to four downed skills for a chance to kill an enemy and rally. These downed skills are less powerful than other skills and include a skill to call out for assistance. While downed, a character's health bar is replaced by a consciousness meter which indicates the time remaining in the downed state. A player downed several times in a short space of time will take increasing longer periods of time to rally again. If the player is not rallied or revived before this meter runs out, or if they continue to be attacked, they will enter a Defeated State.

A defeated character is no longer able to participate in a battle in any way. In this mode they must either wait for an ally to revive them or resurrect at a waypoint for a small amount of gold, equivalent to the price for using waypoints when alive. Such fee is in place in order to avoid allowing characters to use death as a way of teleporting for free and is waived if the player has no money either in inventory or storage.

In PvP a powerful melee only finishing move which takes a few seconds to activate sends a downed player straight to defeated.

• Character Creation -Arena Net's Lead Writer Bobby Stein Talks GW2 House (of) Style
The Guild Wars 2 character creation system uses Aion's technology as its basis. The available customization is more than in Guild Wars, but not as much as in Aion. This is so that a specific artistic aesthetic is maintained. Although the details are currently unknown, customization will be a hybrid combination of choosing from preset options, as in Guild Wars, and tweaking each detail. Some details will be able to be adjusted by sliders, such as the width of the nose.

• Biography & Personality – Personality in Guild Wars 2
Both of these come together to tell your personal story, this is essentially how you roleplay in Guild Wars 2, determining how your character will deal with the events that make up much of PvE gameplay. The personal story is independent from random world events and is always available to follow through the game world and the events which occur there.

The biography is a section in the character creation process which provides the foundation for the character's personal storyline. A player can determine the biography of a character by completing statements with multiple answers based on their profession and race. Determining your biography consists of the answering the following questions: One profession-related question, One question that determines your starting personality, Three race-specific questions.

Personality is a mechanic that gives players a method to roleplay their characters more directly. Initial personality is set at character creation time using the biography questions and is later refined by the character's last 100 interactions with the NPCs of the world. The game keeps track of three aspects: ferocity, dignity, and charm. Actions and dialogues may change a character's personality to strengthen one of those aspects; for example, a character who bullies a NPC would increase his ferocity, and soon be known as barbaric. Likewise, a character who often cons NPCs may be known as a scoundrel.

Choosing a personality has many possible rewards. Some dialogue options are only available to specific personality types, so for example a barbaric character may once in a while have the option of punching a NPC in the middle of a conversation. Personality may also determine how NPCs react to the character, so merchants may cower behind their stalls when approached by someone of the barbaric archetype. One of the earliest available titles in the game is related to the chosen personality type. It's also possible to use karma to impose a character's personality on the world for significant rewards. However the different outcomes for taking a personality choice are typically not extreme to allow the player to play a particular personality without being concerned about the gains.

At character creation a basic personality is assigned based on the answer of a biography question.

Other personality types develop over time as personality altering actions and dialog are taken.

There are potentially thousands of variations in the stories which can be experienced. The story is played from one character's perspective for that character's story. Other players can help with someone else's story but are not able to make choices which affect the outcome. Guild Wars 2 Wiki: Personal Storyline

 Guilds  Link Unavailable
Guilds are formal groupings of players. Guilds will be available to players from near the start of the game, will not be racially-exclusive, and you may join as many guilds as you would like per account. When a character logs in, it will be able to choose which guild it would like to represent. While representing that guild you will appear active on the guild roster and have access to the guild chat. Guild membership will also allow greater out-of-group interactivity, with guild members being easily located on a map, current activities visible on the guild roster, and other ways to keep track of fellow guildmates. Guilds will be able to work towards guild achievements. As guilds do things together in the world, they earn influence. Guilds are able to spend influence on many things such as guild storage, a calendar, and experience flags. Guilds are also able to claim keeps in WvW. They will be able to fly their guild flag from the keep and use influence to upgrade their keep, fortifying it against attacks. Out-of-game support for guilds will be also be implemented, with a guild calendar allowing guilds to coordinate events across timezones, guild chat accessible from web browsers, and smartphone apps that will be available for free.

 Transmutation  http://www.arena.net/blog/a-rewardi...alks-about-loot
A big feature of Guild Wars games is the ability to customize a set of armor until it looks unique to you. The original Guild Wars accomplished this visual customization in part with a dye system that let you make your armor pieces whatever color you wanted. Guild Wars 2 takes this further with the introduction of Transmutation, a system which allows players to customize the appearance of their equipment. Using Transmutation Stones, players can combine two items of the same type, creating a single item with the appearance of one item and the statistics of the other. If both items have an upgrade component, such as a crest, players may choose which one is kept.

A Transmutation Stone is a single use item which allows players to combine two weapons or pieces of armor, gaining a desired aesthetic look from one piece, and a desired set of statistical modifiers from the other. They will be available for purchase through the in-game store and through gameplay through the use of karma.
Copper Transmutation Stone - 49
"Double-click to combine the appearance and attributes of two like items up to level 10 into one custom item."
Tin Transmutation Stone - 300
"Double-click to combine the appearance and attributes of two like items up to level 20 into one custom item."
Iron Transmutation Stone - 600
"Double-click to combine the appearance and attributes of two like items up to level 30 into one custom item."

 Dungeons  Arena Net's William Fairfield on Designing the Dungeons
Every dungeon has two mode's, Story and Exploration. The Story mode uses concept art, cinematic events, and exposition for a more lore focused experience, revealing and developing the Destiny's Edge situation. After completing the Story mode of a dungeon, you will unlock Exploration mode. Exploration mode is significantly harder than the Story mode version. Story mode is meant for random pick up groups, with Exploration mode being the challenging content designed for a coordinated group of players.

Each of the Exploration dungeons have 3 paths that the group can vote on that will determine what path they take. The Dynamic Event system is also present in both versions of the dungeons, so even if you play through multiple times, that doesnt mean youll see the same exact thing. Bonus events could spawn from player actions, by location or even at random and change your experience.

Both Story and Exploration allows for groups of up to five players; content does not scale depending on the number of players in the party so the difficulty remains constant, although sidekicking and player level scaling are performed for dungeons. Dungeons have their own unique weapon and armor set modeled according to the theme of the dungeon. Completing a dungeon awards a token. A story mode token can be traded for a weapon from the dungeon set, while an explorable mode token can be traded for armor from the dungeon set.

 Crafting & Marketplace  Arena Net's Andrew McLeod Talks Crafting in Guild Wars 2
The Marketplace is the Guild Wars 2 player trading system. It is global, enabling trade between players on different servers. It can be used to sell and buy items without the need to find a buyer or seller first. While items can only be put up for sale when in-game, it is possible to browse, bid, or cancel auctions and offers when out of-game and logged into a web browser. A sale can be completed whilst the seller is offline, with the coin going into an account bank. The marketplace is capable of displaying the history and trends of item values.

The crafting system is divided into a variety of specific crafting professions called disciplines, two of which the player can have active at one time and switch to any of the other six for a fee. All skill points and recipes learned in a discipline are saved when switching. Each craft has several levels of advancement; the pacing of the advancement through the levels is intended to match the players' progression through the game, so they should be able to craft items of their level without creating excess items they do not need.

The items obtainable through crafting will have unique appearances but the statistics on the items are no better or worse than items attained through other ways of playing the game. The crafting skill level is also used to determine some titles and achievements.

Harvesting  Ore veins, plants, and trees can be found around the world and harvested for materials.Looting  You have a chance of finding appropriate crafting materials like hides or trophies when you loot slain enemies.Purchasing  Some specialist merchants sell ingredients.Salvaging kit  Available from merchants, salvaging kits allow you to salvage crafting materials out of old or unwanted items.

 Transmutation  Arena Net's John Hargrove Talks Loot
A big feature of Guild Wars games is the ability to customize a set of armor until it looks unique to you. The original Guild Wars accomplished this visual customization in part with a dye system that let you make your armor pieces whatever color you wanted. Guild Wars 2 takes this further with the introduction of Transmutation, a system which allows players to customize the appearance of their equipment. Using Transmutation Stones, players can combine two items of the same type, creating a single item with the appearance of one item and the statistics of the other. If both items have an upgrade component, such as a crest, players may choose which one is kept.

A Transmutation Stone is a single use item which allows players to combine two weapons or pieces of armor, gaining a desired aesthetic look from one piece, and a desired set of statistical modifiers from the other. They will be available for purchase through the in-game store and through gameplay through the use of karma.

Copper Transmutation Stone - 49
"Double-click to combine the appearance and attributes of two like items up to level 10 into one custom item."
Tin Transmutation Stone - 300
"Double-click to combine the appearance and attributes of two like items up to level 20 into one custom item."
Iron Transmutation Stone - 600
"Double-click to combine the appearance and attributes of two like items up to level 30 into one custom item."

• The Dye System – Arena Net's Kristin Perry on the Dye System
Guild Wars 2 has a vast and intricate dye system unlike anything seen before. ArenaNet has stated that there are going to be around 400 dye colors to pick from, on top this, a dye colour will look different based on what material type you apply them to. Dying could actually be considered a Crafting Skill in itself, as most of the colours are not available to the player at the start, and must be unlocked, found, or given as a reward.

Every dye you unlock is then available account-wide and along with that you will be able to sort the dye UI to your heart’s content; even including a favorites section. Some pieces of armor may have 1 or 2 dye channels, but larger armor will have up to 3 dye channels. In some cases with things such as clothing, there will be 4 dye channels allowed. ArenaNet has created sets for their armor pieces, you’ll be able to take say a trench coat, an inside vest and shirt, and pants and dye the coat and pants separate colors.

This will give you tons of customization possibilities because this can be applied to any weight class for armor types. Each race has its own cultural palette for dye colors when starting out. This means a red color for a human may not look the same as a red color for a norn or charr. The norn, for example, have far more earthy colors: rust reds and rich forest greens and browns. With the furs, straps, and intricate carved patterns of their culture, these colors really feel solid and meaty on their armors. A charr would have probably have more blood reds and desaturated military blues and greens, while a human might have more jewel-tone reds and blues, etc.

• Tournament PvP – Arena Net's Jonathan Sharp on PVP
Tournaments PvP will equalize everyone’s character level and unlock all skills from the start to have two teams fight in a fair, instanced game.Tournaments are the more organized side of structured PvP. Tournament play is always 5v5 and matches take place on the same maps that are used for hot join play. Tournaments run with varying frequency, and different reward levels allow some players to get their feet wet in the smaller tournaments while more-organized teams battle it out in the larger tournaments.

Tournaments come in the following flavours. Pick-up, a single elimination tournaments wait for 8 teams to join before starting. This tournament has 3 rounds of eliminations, with winners receiving qualifier points. Monthly, which requires an amount of qualifier points from the pickup tournaments to join. Yearly, grand tournaments featuring the winners from the monthly tournaments slugging it out for the right to call themselves the best PvP players of the year. And finally, Player-Run, customized by players, these tournaments allow for great flexibility and unique bragging rights.

• Quick Join PvP – Link Unavailable
A pick-up play team based hot joinable style of the Conquest PvP. You can leave or join a game already in progress, and the game modes and types will be built to support this. This removes the catch-22 of groups disallowing newer players to join, when those same players can’t get better because they can’t find a group. Like with Ladder PvP your character's level and gear will be equalized.

• World v World PvP – Link Unavailable
World vs World, WvW, World PvP or Casual PvP, will take your current character – as is – and have them join an ongoing, large-scale battle to win rewards for their world. Worlds, or servers, are randomly matched up against two other worlds, rotated every two weeks. The combat is open and features many objectives and roles which players can do; "players may decide to fight alone against a supply caravan, join a single group and capture a mine or create a large alliance to assault one of the numerous fortress that could give an advantage in the zone." The battle is on a large scale, where hundreds of people can fight on each side in week-long battles.

Each opposing world starts out with castles, mercenary camps, mines, lumber mills and villages. Separating the starting zones are neutral zones controlled by no one, also containing fortresses, mines, and villages. The resources gained from mines and lumber mills are used to rebuild walls, create siege engines, and generally defend the team's fortress. These territories and control points will confer benefits to the world that controls them; "maybe everyone gets increased energy regeneration or healing rate or enhanced loot drop rate." Players can gain experience and level their character in World PvP. Guilds will be able to take and hold keeps.

Players are free to come and go from the battle as they please and there is no limit to the number of players entering. Players enter with a character of any level and use skills they have available to that character. Characters can enter as a sidekick which will allow them to play as a higher level character. World PvP is intended as a casual form of PvP, designed to be a more relaxed bridging point between PvE and the tactics and pressure of structured PvP. It is hoped that players of any level or PvP experience can participate and be useful.

• Achievements & Feats –
Achievements are part of an account-wide award system that gauges what a player has accomplished in the game, from killing monsters, to mastering weapons, or participating in mini-games. Achievements are split into eight main categories, and are then ranked by tiers. As players progress through each tier, they become more difficult to master. Certain categories will require more than one character to complete. Some achievements will unlock cosmetic items or titles that players can display beneath their character's name. Achievements do not have any impact on gameplay, nor do they give players an advantage they would otherwise lack.

Feats are combat related tasks that reward players with a Daily Feat Chest. By completing these Feats you can gain access to loot for your profession as well as additional XP & Coin. Feats reset daily so they’re not a one off type thing. There are various differing requirements to completing a Feat, such as time spent fighting, overcoming specific challenges, or how fast you kill, how many creatures killed, length of kill streaks, etc.

Activities are various mini games located in the major cities; each is designed to fit with the unique flavor of that city. They are open to players of all levels, and put veterans and new characters on the same footing. The mini games have rewards similar to that of achievements, unlocking rare cosmetic items that are not otherwise available. There are about 30 activities in game. These include Archery, Bar brawl, Keg Brawl, Shooting gallery, Smash ‘Em Up, and Snowball fight. There are also things like the One-Man Band in Divinity’s Reach, the human capital. The One-Man Band is like a giant festive jukebox. Players can select songs from it and have them playing within the square that everyone around can hear.

• Custom Soundtracks -James Boer Talks Guild Wars 2 Audio Design
No matter how fantastic a game’s music is, when you hear the same music for the thousandth time, you start wanting to change things up a bit. Many players will simply turn the game music off and play their own collections. The problem is that an external music player has no context as to what’s going on in-game. Guild Wars 2 will offer a solution for this as well. By giving players the option of choosing external music playlists that the game’s audio engine will use as a replacement for the default in-game music. Players can choose different playlists for background ambience and battle music, for instance. Additionally, when appropriate, such as during cinematics, the game can revert back to in-game music temporarily to give the best possible cinematic experience, then resume the custom playlist when it’s done. Players are already eagerly compiling and asking other what their own personal playlist will consist of.

 Extended Experience
Is how you play Guild Wars 2 when youre not playing Guild Wars 2. As in, theyre releasing apps for the iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Android smart phones thatll allow you to interact with the world. While this does not mean you have the ability to play the whole game on the Ipad (but never say never, they say), but be able to do stuff when youre not available to play. The same functionality will be available via a web-interface.

The demo for iPhone and iPad was shown at PAX this year, showing basically the real-time world-map display, where you can follow your friends around and watch as the dynamic events kick off. Also, chat and share information. So, if you scroll around the map, you can find locations and then give the knowledge back to people in game  eventually via ping. Theyre working on adding the ability to browse characters in a hero view, revealing their stats and equipment, including the source of the artefact. Basically, to start with, its a program that allows you to interact with the mass of information in the game and watch events play out, live.

_____Release & Testing

When will GW2 be released?
There is currently no release date.

Has the closed beta started yet?
Yes. Closed beta testing started on the 16th of December 2011.

Can I sign up to participate in the beta?
No. There won't be any webpage for getting into the closed beta and ArenaNet will not reveal how they select candidates.

Is there a demo?
ArenaNet have demos available at several gaming conventions.

Will GW2 be available on Steam?
We won't know until they announce the release details. However, all GW1 games are available on steam (as well as most other games published by NCsoft), so it's very likely.

Will there be a Collector's Edition?
Yes. All that is known is that there will be one.

What are the specs for running GW2?
No requirements have been set. They plan to keep the requirements low so that owners of mainstream PCs will be able to play the game when it is released.

_____General

Will GW2 have a subscription fee?
No. After buying the game you will be able to play for as long as you like.

Will GW2 have micro-transactions?
Yes, there will be micro-transactions. They will be similar to the micro-transactions offered in the GW1 store. None of the things you can buy in the in-game store will give you an advantage over other players.

Will the game world be persistent or instanced?
GW2 will have a fully persistent world. You will be in the world with other players, but there will be loading times between maps. The areas of the game that are instanced are as follows.

I was really following The Old Republic until someone mentioned GW2 in the gaming GDT. I then spent the next day of my life absorbing everything I could find about this game. My hype immediately switched gears, this games seems much more my style than ToR does.

It looks like they have taken elements from a lot of different MMO's, improved upon them, and slammed them all seamlessly into one very polished looking game. I always play the warrior class in MMO's and I have never been more excited at what they have done with the class. 2 quick switch weapon sets? Awesome. Weapon based skills? Awesome. Whirlwinding through fire to set your dual axes on fire and shoot out fireballs? ****ing awesome. The option to actually be a good ranged DPS? Best feature I have ever heard in my life. I can't wait to make a warrior with a bow.

I also love the gameplay video there elementalist is actually dodging attacks and rolling around while casting spells. I read that attacks (while you can focus on one target) are not guaranteed to hit that target. Like if a mob is shooting a bow at a light-armor character, if a heavy armor character stands between them, the arrow will hit the heavy armor character. With this feature, moving while casting, and no auto attack, its almost like an action MMORPG. Exactly what I was looking for.

Oh yeah so I've been meaning to ask this, are there two warring factions on one server? You know, alliance/horde or jedi/sith, that type of thing. I never played GW1 so I'm not sure what to expect. I just haven't read anything about it.

Yes!!! I am a huge fan of the original Guild wars and have been working working on my hall of monuments in order to get free stuff in GW2. Next to Diablo 3 it is the game I am most interested in.

I never played the original guild wars however I did buy EOTN off of new egg for 5 dollars the other day any I'm going to buy the rest off of steam to work on my Hall of monuments achievements for GW2.

I've been a big WoW player for the past 6 years (Been playing since US closed beta) and WoW has lost it's fun for me since 4.0.1 and I don't see myself coming back.

Post what server you're playing on and I'll come join you. Maybe we could get a big PBN guild going.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DayoftheGreek

I was really following The Old Republic until someone mentioned GW2 in the gaming GDT. I then spent the next day of my life absorbing everything I could find about this game. My hype immediately switched gears, this games seems much more my style than ToR does.

It looks like they have taken elements from a lot of different MMO's, improved upon them, and slammed them all seamlessly into one very polished looking game. I always play the warrior class in MMO's and I have never been more excited at what they have done with the class. 2 quick switch weapon sets? Awesome. Weapon based skills? Awesome. Whirlwinding through fire to set your dual axes on fire and shoot out fireballs? ****ing awesome. The option to actually be a good ranged DPS? Best feature I have ever heard in my life. I can't wait to make a warrior with a bow.

I also love the gameplay video there elementalist is actually dodging attacks and rolling around while casting spells. I read that attacks (while you can focus on one target) are not guaranteed to hit that target. Like if a mob is shooting a bow at a light-armor character, if a heavy armor character stands between them, the arrow will hit the heavy armor character. With this feature, moving while casting, and no auto attack, its almost like an action MMORPG. Exactly what I was looking for.

dawt.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DayoftheGreek

Oh yeah, how did I forget.

NO MONTHLY FEEEEEEEEEEE!

Oh yeah so I've been meaning to ask this, are there two warring factions on one server? You know, alliance/horde or jedi/sith, that type of thing. I never played GW1 so I'm not sure what to expect. I just haven't read anything about it.

For serious, I don't mind cash shops either when it comes to free mmo's because seriously, they have to bring income in somehow and I know I'm not getting charged $15 dollars every month that I don't have time to play.

There are no Horde vs Alliance deals in guild wars but thats not to say there isn't pvp. Guild wars was very big on battleground pvp and guild pvp. Those are the only two I know of at least like I said I never really played the first one up until now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by darkpyro525

Any of those videos in game footage?

All of the videos contain some form of in game footage.

All of the class videos are in game footage though. The manifesto trailer under the "About" section is a great video to watch.

I still have A TON of stuff to post up(Hense all the reserve posts) for the thread and I'm hoping to get around to it tonight.

The only problem I had with Guild Wars -- which was eventually a fatal problem -- was the lack of "progress" after you hit max level and beat the campaign. The game was completely focused on PvP. It wasn't even interesting enough for me to finish the first expansion. Hopefully the PvE is entirely more rewarding in this game.

That said, it is one of the most polished games, which is pretty impressive even if it wasn't free-to-play.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DayoftheGreek

I was really following The Old Republic until someone mentioned GW2 in the gaming GDT. I then spent the next day of my life absorbing everything I could find about this game. My hype immediately switched gears, this games seems much more my style than ToR does.

It looks like they have taken elements from a lot of different MMO's, improved upon them, and slammed them all seamlessly into one very polished looking game. I always play the warrior class in MMO's and I have never been more excited at what they have done with the class. 2 quick switch weapon sets? Awesome. Weapon based skills? Awesome. Whirlwinding through fire to set your dual axes on fire and shoot out fireballs? ****ing awesome. The option to actually be a good ranged DPS? Best feature I have ever heard in my life. I can't wait to make a warrior with a bow.

I also love the gameplay video there elementalist is actually dodging attacks and rolling around while casting spells. I read that attacks (while you can focus on one target) are not guaranteed to hit that target. Like if a mob is shooting a bow at a light-armor character, if a heavy armor character stands between them, the arrow will hit the heavy armor character. With this feature, moving while casting, and no auto attack, its almost like an action MMORPG. Exactly what I was looking for.

I'm still more excited for The Old Republic, but that's because I'm naturally drawn to any space science fiction, especially Star Wars.